That's Wild!

We finish up the trip to Minnesota with a few pages of the Coon Rapids Dam which is a little farther north of the city. On the west shore (where I started) the stamp is located at the nature center and I spent a little time observing the goldfinches and other birds from the giant picture windows. 

I made this layout for my 2023 summer class that I'm taking with Meggan Jacks and Tessa Chapple. This was a kick-off crop and they shared this idea for blocks and small photos. This worked out well because the birds didn't take up much of the photo space so I could crop them to about 3" square to fit the blocks. I left one large photo for emphasis. The paper is an Old CM kit. I thought the pastel colors were a good backdrop for the photos. The embellishments were from a different pack but they matched the colors well and had the Springtime sentiments I was looking for.

I was able to cross the river here (the motivation is that there is a stamp on the OTHER side so....) On my journey across I saw 2 unique things. First is this duck with a blue bill. I thought I was seeing things but this was real! It turns out to be called a Ruddy Duck. It was the only one I saw in the group.

I made this layout for the June 2023 CM Virtual Crop. Scroll to Challenge #1 to see the sketch. I decided to make my Ruddy Duck the focus of the page so I chose a blue and orange set of papers that would match his coloring. The scalloped orange is from a pack of decorative cardstock that Old CM released. I had just found the pack at a scrapbook yard sale so the timing was perfect! I know that the stickers are geese and not ducks (did you just go and see that for yourself?) You'll notice that I "turned" the sketch. But as a square, it's so symmetrical that it doesn't really matter which way the photos go, though it does look better if they are facing the same direction.

My last set of photos is more about the dam (and you can see the walkway as it stretches across the Mississippi). Flowing water not only makes for good photos, but it's also just beautiful to watch! As I walked across, I noticed a snag that created some additional interest in the water patterns. But I was also amazed that it didn't move! You would think that the power of the water would push it over the edge, but it didn't! 

This layout was the OTHER kick-off crop sketch from the summer class I mentioned above. I used the final scraps from the Deep Blue paper. I liked that the laser border could be turned vertically and mirror the falling water. Because the 6x4 photos do not need to be trimmed, this layout came together very quickly. I substituted one of the 4x3 photos for a journal box. This was the last page of the album. It is actually 1/2 of the sketch. The right page would be turned 90 degrees for vertical photos with the smaller photos at the bottom. But this was all I needed and it worked perfectly!